Soyer's Culinary Campaign: Being Historical Reminiscences of the Late War.: With The Plain Art of Cookery for Military and Civil Institutions

to Balaklava, when I met Major Lindsey, one of the aides-de-camp of General Simpson, entering with, I believe, another despatch. He asked me where I was going to sleep: I answered, at Balaklava. “Oh, nonsense! don’t go away. We are all ordered for half-past three in the morning. A great battle is expected, as the Russians are going to attack us upon a fresh point. I will give you a plank and a blanket in my room to lie upon for an hour or so.” I accepted his kind offer, and he left me. When I informed my Zouave of the anticipated battle, “By Jove!” said he, “I hope they will give me a gun and sword to go and fight. I shall make a busy day of it. I smell powder. Pray, governor, do beg of the general to let me go with them.” The fellow had taken a drop too much, and he went on like a madman--no one could check him. We retired to our hospitable abode, and I went to sleep; but the mad Zouave was anywhere and everywhere. At three o’clock I awoke. The general and his Staff started--the cannonade was going on fiercely, but no fusillade was heard. At seven the general and all returned; and it was, as he said, a false alarm. My Zouave returned at eight, loaded with provisions, which he told me he had borrowed of some fellows he had found fast asleep. We arrived on board the _Baraguay d’Hilliers_ about ten, faint with fatigue and hunger, having had no breakfast. Such was camp-life at head-quarters. It was like swimming between life and death. No one seemed to apprehend the least danger, while a successful sortie on the part of the enemy would have placed every one’s life in the greatest peril. So much for the unprofitable business of war! Having fixed upon a spot for my kitchen, I immediately sent the stoves to the camp. As they happened to be close to the railway, they arrived early the next morning. In the course of the day I reached my